Sleepless
by SilverStarsAndMoons
Summary: Quinn used to be able to sleep anywhere, but since Sam has left, she can't sleep at all.


It's no secret that Quinn can sleep anywhere. Under the bleachers on the football field, on top of them with only the sky for a ceiling and the sun beating on her face. Slumped over in chairs, on the risers in the choir room, and once, curled uncomfortably in the middle of a packed car, her head resting on Rachel's shoulder. She can sleep anywhere, and she has never had trouble falling asleep – until now.

It's not as if she regrets what happened. Well, okay. Maybe she does. Because dressed the way she is now, pretending that spiked collars and purple hair are the ticket to not feeling anything, it's easy to pretend she doesn't care. She does regret it, though. This, along with everything else, keeps her awake at night . . . and stuck in her mother's perfectly decorated, perfectly cleaned home; she feels the only grit she's allowed to get away with is the purple streaks in her hair. Certainly, the grit in her mind isn't easy to sort through, let alone wash away.

Maybe she should have stuck with Sam. Labrador retriever, blonde Justin Bieber-haired Sam, who was always calm, and always unassuming. Never asked much. Never wanted much. Just wanted to be with her.

The thing is, though, it wasn't enough for Quinn.

Sam is like Finn. If she's honest, they're almost the exact same person. But Sam doesn't have the temper Finn did. Sam was slightly smarter about sex, and never would have believed that you could get pregnant from a hot tub. He had these hands that were so lanky, and strummed guitar strings like he was born to do it.

In short, it was like he was a better Finn. But he wasn't Finn, and therefore, he failed in Quinn's eyes.

She paints black eyeliner on and thinks that she's done with trying to chase the all-American boy next door. She'd probably do better with someone just as fucked up as she is, someone who would welcome damaged goods and damage her even more. She wants to be hurt . . . she wants the mistakes she's made to be rubbed out like ground glass against her skin.

Quinn wants to bleed.

What she can't realize is that she's already bleeding. She's bleeding because everything she's touched has been ruined. Finn is with Rachel, who, despite all her failings, has never hurt him in the way Quinn has. Being told that the spark just wasn't there anymore makes Quinn want to die. But it wasn't – not for her, either.

Sam, on the other hand . . . was the spark ever there? Thinking back, Quinn remembers feeling something when he kissed her, when he stroked his hand gently over her stretch-marked stomach and never failed to kiss her belly button, the way he wiped her tears from her face whenever she couldn't stand how gentle he was to her, when she felt she needed to be punished. Sometimes she'd slap him, just to hear the crack across his cheek, and every time, he'd just trap her hands and hold her.

She would cry against his warm chest; he would say nothing, but his lips on her hair, and the fact that she felt safe in his arms made it okay. She would fall asleep; he would keep watch over her, and she felt like literally, the luckiest.

When it ended, she knew that it was all her fault. The hurt in his eyes told her that much. The mistakes weren't his; he was perfect. It was Quinn's mistake; Quinn's selfishness; Quinn's guilt.

He left the school shortly after. She attempted to speak to him, once; he simply shrugged her off. She wrote him emails which he never responded to. She found out later it was because he had his phone shut off and no Internet for days in his new place, but the agony was still real for her.

She finally got hold of him on the phone one day between classes. The hallway chatter was so loud she nearly was unable to hear anything he said, but she did catch this – "It doesn't matter anymore."

It did matter, though. Does matter. It matters because she lost the one good thing in her life when her life was a tailspin after Beth.

She fights now to get back a daughter who cries when put in her arms. She fights now to turn herself back into the self-assured cheerleader she was back when Finn was her boyfriend, Rachel was her scapegoat, and she was on top of the world.

Funny how on top of the world ends up being the bottom of the heap pretty quickly when you're not watching where you're stepping.

She feels like if she could see Sam again, have him hold her, have him kiss her, and stroke her hair, and tell her how perfect she is, maybe she'd be able to get back that easy sleep under the curve of the blue sky outside, or stuffed beside someone in a car, or even slumped over a pair of chairs in the choir room. Maybe she wouldn't lie awake at night wondering why she let the only good thing go for someone who couldn't feel a spark of love or life towards her.

She finishes her makeup, slings her back over her shoulder, and tries to look tough. It doesn't matter anymore. Sam is right.

All the same, she wishes that he'd come back, if only to make her feel special again. One thing that Quinn misses most is feeling like she matters to someone.

The sleepless nights would mean so much more if she could figure out what it is about her that repels people. As it is, she's happy to be repellent, but she'd rather it'd be on her own terms, not because of some inherent failing inside her.

She closes her black-stained eyes and feels the familiar fatigue behind them. If only she could sleep. If only she could relax.

If only she could fix the mistakes that have left her bereft in this sea of people discovering who they are.


End file.
